Sunday, April 2, 2017

The Flynn plot thickens

1. Recall that after former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates was
told recently by the White House she didn’t have clearance to testify
before the House Intelligence Committee, and then, when she said she was
going to do so anyway, Devin Nunes, the Republican chair, cancelled
last week’s hearing.

2. One of the people Yates was planning to discuss was former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

3. Last week Flynn asked for immunity from prosecution in return for spilling some beans.

4. Now we learn that last week the White House asked Flynn to “amend”
the financial disclosure form he turned in months ago before he was
named Trump’s National Security Advisor.

5. Guess what? Flynn’s
“amended” disclosure, released yesterday, lists income from Flynn's
consulting firm, whose clients are not revealed, as well as income from
several Russian firms that he had left out of his original form --
including the cyber-security firm Kaspersky Government Security
Solutions.

6. Kaspersky makes some of the world’s most widely
used anti-malware programs, and has documented ties to Russian
intelligence agencies. The company’s founder, Eugene Kaspersky, was
educated at a KGB-sponsored cryptography school, and worked as a Russian
intelligence agent. An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek in 2015
found that the company frequently used data collected from its hundreds
of millions of customers to aid Russian authorities -- including the
KGB’s successor, the FSB -- in criminal investigations. Since 2012, many
high level positions at the company have been filled with former
Russian military and intelligence agents.

7. In December, Russian
prosecutors charged a manager at Kaspersky with treason, saying he and
two Russian information-security officials were “interacting” with U.S.
intelligence officials, according to a defense lawyer in the case.